Buncombe County Sheriff has 1,800-camera network; Asheville PD now gets to use it

ASHEVILLE - Asheville police will soon have access to a growing network of real-time surveillance cameras in the city.

City Council approved an interlocal agreement between City Manager Debra Campbell's Office and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office, allowing for the access, in a 4-1 vote Jan. 24. Council member Kim Roney voted against the agreement. Council members Sage Turner and Sheneika Smith were not present.

The camera system is maintained by the Sheriff's Office and equipped with Fusus software. As of now, it is comprised of about 1,800 cameras, Sheriff's Office spokesperson Aaron Sarver said. With City Council's approval, Asheville police will now have access to some real-time camera feeds within the city, and the Sheriff's Office might install Fusus-equipped cameras at some city-maintained locations.

The city will pay the Sheriff's Office $30,000 a year for the service.

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At the City Council meeting, Campbell said Fusus-equipped cameras were already slated to be equipped by the Sheriff's Office at three Asheville-maintained properties: Pritchard Park, City Hall and the intersection of Hiawassee Street and Lexington Avenue. If the Sheriff's Office wants to install more Fusus-equipped cameras on city property, it will be done in collaboration with Campbell's office.

Sheriff: Facial recognition tools not being used

At the first meeting earlier in the day of the Environment and Safety Committee ― a new iteration of the former Public Safety Committee ― Assistant City Manager Ben Woody described Fusus as software that allows a camera network to grow from several sources. County government, city government and business owners can all add their own cameras to the system, he said.

"So, APD would have to access Fusus through the Sheriff's Office and they would be subject to the sheriff's policies in terms of use of Fusus," Woody told the committee. "But that would allow APD to have access to that system, and that would be for cameras that are located within the city limits, excluding Buncombe County Schools."

Police would also have access to cameras in the system installed on private property and at the city's public housing complexes.

"Access to the FUSUS system will enhance local law enforcement ability to effectively respond to public safety emergencies," a City of Asheville staff report says.

Fusus is the software that "drives" the Sheriff's Office's real time intelligence center, Sarver told the Citizen Times. Usage of the software started in Buncombe County Schools. Though the school system already had security cameras in place, Fusus has allowed for the Sheriff's Office to see what's happening in real time and remotely starting in 2021, Sarver said.

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The Sheriff's Office has about 1,800 cameras using Fusus software, and about 1,500 of those are in county public schools, he said.

The software is capable of some advanced features, though the Sheriff's Office has said that it is not using those. At City Council, questions arose about facial recognition capability. A Sheriff's Office employee who spoke on Fusus said that is not being used.

Sarver gave another example to the Citizen Times: If the Sheriff's Office needed to find someone wearing a green sweatshirt at a large grocery store, the software could identify everyone who came in wearing that during a specified timeframe. But the agency is not using such a feature, Sarver said.

"Certainly, if we make changes to how the system is being utilized, we're going to communicate those not just to our elected officials, but to the public," Sarver said.

Real-time surveillance software has been criticized by some civil liberties advocates, particularly when used by law enforcement agencies. In 2020 the ACLU raised concerns about the use of Fusus in Jackson, Mississippi, NBC reported. The Mississippi chapter of the ACLU said in a statement that it wanted to work with Jackson to develop policies “to ensure the program serves its aimed purpose and avoids threatening constitutional rights.”

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Environment and Safety Chair and Council Member Maggie Ullman said she toured the Sheriff's Office's real time intelligence center on Jan. 23, and left with cautious optimism. She raised a concern about facial recognition capability.

"We know that has connections to racial profiling," she said. "That's just not acceptable, and I'm very assured that that is not part of the conversation."

Ullman said she was told that the Sheriff's Office would not use the tool. On the other side, Fusus had potential to help solve crimes — especially in light of APD's understaffing woes, she said.

"That time — that three minutes, that five minutes — between dispatch being called and one of our officers showing up ... if we have a camera to really inform us what's going on, we're starting with all that much more information for our police team to do their best job, to really get to that arrest and solve that crime," she said. "I think that's worth trying."

Privacy, public safety concerns clash

The item was on the City Council's consent agenda before it was discussed at the Environment and Safety Committee.

"Contracts of this type almost always are placed on the Consent Agenda by their nature," City Attorney Brad Branham said in an email to the Citizen Times. "I'm not aware of any special circumstance or unusual condition for this item that would move it a separate category, and nothing in the law requires a public hearing for such a contract."

Vice Mayor Sandra Kilgore briefly referenced the camera network at a Jan. 6 Council of Independent Business Owners meeting.

"Council will be taking action on inter-local agreements with Buncombe County Sheriff's (Office) to install an integrated network of security cameras to deter criminal activity and to enhance response in key locations in downtown," she said at the time.

After Branham's email exchange, at the committee meeting, Ullman indicated that she would pull the item out from the consent agenda so that it could be discussed by council.

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Asheville Housing Authority Executive Director David Nash spoke in support of APD using the Fusus software during public comment.

"I'm here to back up the voices of our residents," Nash said. "We had a meeting a couple of weeks ago ... The important thing from our perspective, in addition to ongoing camera surveillance, when there's an issue going on — we think that's very important. We think that police presence is very important and we want, again, to make sure that the voices of our residents are being heard instead of just statements in the community that our properties are over-policed. I think they are, in fact, under-policed in some ways."

Hillcrest resident Tiffany Davis said there had been "a lot of shootings," and that more police presence in general would be helpful.

"We need a little more security over there," she said. "And we have a lot of cameras, and it seems like when something happens in our community, they never know what happened. I want to know why the cameras are there. Who are they really for? Because my house got shot up, and I haven't heard anything. My cars, too."

Other community members spoke about privacy risks, questioning the camera system's long-term implications.

General Assignment Reporter Christian Smith contributed to this report.

Ryan Oehrli covers public safety, breaking news and other beats for the Citizen Times. Comments? Questions? Tips? Send them to coehrli@citizentimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: City Council give Asheville police the go-ahead on camera system